Small Metal Objects
by Laura Louisa Lewis
Summary: In the Season 2 episode, "Moonlighting", Jamie Reagan used his childhood skill for swallowing small objects to his advantage when leaving Johnny Tesla's boiler room operation. That skill became the main topic of family dinner conversation the following Sunday. These are the stories behind that conversation. #4 in the There's a Story Behind That series.
1. Chapter 1

_Some dialogue taken from the Season 2 episode, Moonlighting._

* * *

 **CHAPTER 1**

Frank looked around the dining room of the Reagan family home. It was an atypical Sunday dinner in the Reagan household. Everyone was being quieter than usual, the regular seating arrangement of the Danny Reagan family on one side and the Erin Reagan-Boyle family and Jamie on the other had been rearranged so Jamie was sandwiched between his siblings, and Erin was cutting food for her brother, something she hadn't done since he was four, while Jamie was resting his casted left wrist on the table. The two youngest Reagans, Jack and Sean, were staring intently at their Uncle Jamie's face.

Jack finally broke the silence. "How's the other guy look?"

Jamie looked up at his nephews, as much as he could through his swollen, bruised eyes, and tried to smile. "Other two guys."

"There were two?" Sean asked.

"Yep," Jamie confirmed. "They look even cooler than me."

Frank glanced at his son again. If Jamie looked any 'cooler', he'd be in the hospital, and if he hadn't kept his wits about him and gulped down that thumb drive – and kept it down – he'd probably be in the damn morgue. That accomplishment should be acknowledged, Frank thought. "And he didn't cough up the evidence."

Jamie snickered. "It's a gift." He hidden that thumb drive the best way he knew how, and kept it hidden. He supposed 'puking up the evidence at the hospital' didn't count as coughing it up, and also wasn't really dinnertime conversation.

Nicki looked around at the adults at the table in confusion. "I don't understand. Did he have to swallow something?"

Jamie glanced at his niece. "Yeah, it was the... secret code."

"I'll explain later," Erin leaned over and told her daughter. She didn't want to get into how close they'd come to losing Jamie, not at dinner and not in front of Danny's young boys.

This all sounded really super-spy movie cool to Jack and Sean. "Really?" Jack asked, flowed by a "You did?" from Sean.

"Yeah," Jamie responded.

"Apparently, Uncle Jamie's been famous for swallowing things since he was a kid," Linda added.

Danny, Erin and Frank all laughed at that statement. The stories they had about Jamie's propensity for swallowing things... Danny decided to go first. "Um-hm. Like the Liberty head dimes from my coin collection."

==BB==BB==

 _Danny's Dimes_

"Danny?" Jamie pounded on the door to his brother's bedroom. The three-year old had become bored playing alone with his toys during the hour his mother has designated as "homework hour" for the three older Reagans, and was looking for someone to play with him. "Danny? Are you there?" The door drifted open slightly as he knocked on it again. Jamie pushed the door further open. "Danny?"

No answer. Jamie walked into his brother's room and immediately spotted Danny's coin collection spread out on his desk. Danny had told him not to touch them; that they were his and nobody messed with his stuff. Jamie climbed into his brother's desk chair and looked down at the coins spread out in front of him. They were so shiny, and so many different sizes and colors. Disregarding his brother's warning, he picked up one of the small, orangey colored ones, and stared intently at the little man pictured on the front before flipping it over and staring at the image on the back. Some kind of building? He touched it to his tongue. It had an interesting flavor that wasn't like any of the food Mommy and Grandma cooked for him.

He put the orangey coin down next to a bigger silver one and stared at both coins. The person on the front was different than the person on the orangey one. He leaned over and stuck his tongue on the silver one. It tasted slightly different, also. More like the orangey coin than like food, but not the same as it.

His attention was next drawn to a row of three small silver coins. They were about the same size as the orangey one, but the picture was different again. He picked up the three coins. Like the bigger silver coins and unlike the orangey coins, these ones had rough edges. He scooped up the small silver coins and put them in his mouth. They tasted different, too.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?" Danny yelled from the doorway.

At Danny's shout, Jamie gasped and the three coins slipped to the back of his throat and were quickly swallowed. "N…n…nothing," he stammered.

"Get away from my coins, you little brat!"

Jamie pushed himself out of Danny's chair, scattering coins across the desk. He ran for the door, barely eluding Danny's grasp, and down the hall to the safest place he could think of – Joey's room. He slammed the door shut behind him and ducked under Joe's desk. He was in so much trouble…

Joe put his pencil down – he hadn't been making any progress on that dumb math problem anyway – and leaned over to look at his little brother. "Hiya, Jamie. What're you doing?"

Jamie looked up his brother. "Joey, I did something really bad."

Joe slid out of his chair to sit on the floor. "What can you do that's really bad, kiddo? You're only three."

"I was looking at Danny's coins, and I was holding a few of them, and I wanted to see if they tasted like the other ones, and Danny scared me," Jamie started to explain. He was interrupted a loud pounding on the door, and Danny yelling.

"Joe, get that brat out here, and get him to give me back my Liberty Head dimes!" Danny demanded. He banged on the door again. "Jamie, give me my coins back right now!"

Joe looked at his little brother, who had curled up in a tight ball with his head on his knees. "Jamie, where are Danny's coins?" Joe asked. He had a feeling he knew the answer.

"I didn't mean to do it." Jamie's muffled voice was barely audible.

"Jame, where are they?"

Jamie turned his head sideways to look at Joe. "In my tummy," he mumbled. "But I didn't mean to do it! Danny scared me!"

"Oh, Jamie." Joe tried not to laugh. Danny was going to be soooo pissed, and Mom was going to get all worried. "That's not good. We should go talk to Mom."

==BB==BB==

Danny reached over to squeeze his brother's shoulder. "Guess where we found those?"

Jack and Sean shared a look. They both had a pretty good idea where those coins went. "Ugh. Uncle Jamie?" Jack guessed.

"Um-hm," Danny confirmed. "It's okay, though. Once I boiled them, they were shiny and new."

The entire family started laughing.

Jamie clutched his injured ribs. "Come on, cut it out. It hurts when I laugh."

As the family tried to stop laughing, Henry decided to apologize for them. "Of course. We're sorry."

Erin tried not to laugh, but couldn't stop. "My confirmation locket..."

* * *

 _TBC tomorrow!_


	2. Chapter 2

_Thanks to those of you who have read and reviewed! More little Jamie flashbacks ahead!  
_

* * *

 **CHAPTER 2**

 _Erin's Confirmation Locket_

"Danny, watch your brother for a few minutes. I've got to go find another box for the cupcakes," Mary ordered her oldest son.

"But I'm busy frosting these ones. How can I do both of those things?" Danny all-but whined.

"Just do it, Daniel. And next time, let me know before Saturday night that you signed up to bring snacks for your Sunday School class." Mary left the kitchen to look for an appropriate box in the basement.

"Fine," Danny muttered with a glare at his baby brother, who was sitting across the kitchen table, watching the cupcake production with great interest.

"Danny, can I have one? Please?" Jamie longingly eyed the blue-frosted cupcakes.

"Nope, kid. Mom already told you no." Danny turned his attention to smearing frosting haphazardly on top of the cakes.

Jamie frowned. Joe probably would have given him one or split one with him. Erin too. But they were both upstairs bathing to get ready for church tomorrow. His bath time was up next, once Mommy finished with Danny's cupcakes. Bored, he reached for the little pointy-topped bottle of blue food coloring Danny had left sitting on the table. He pulled at the lid, but the tiny conical lid slipped out of his chubby fingers. He turned the bottle upside down and watched the air inside move to the top while the blue liquid inside slid down the sides. He turned the bottle on its side, and the air bubble moved again, along with the blue liquid. That's when he noticed something interesting about the bottle. Two of the sides were flat, and two were round and stuck out further. He turned the bottle so the lid faced him. Yep, two of the sides definitely were not flat. He wondered if he could squeeze the rounded sides down flat like the other two. Only one way to find out! He squeezed the bottle between his fingers. It looked like it was working.

And then, with a quiet pop, the lid launched off the bottle and bounced off Jamie's forehead. He yelped in surprise.

Danny looked up. "Jamie! What the hell!" he yelled, then started laughing.

Jamie wiped at the moisture he felt on his face. "Danny! I'm bleeding!" He looked down at his hand. "Danny, it's blue! Why's my blood blue?"

Danny laughed loudly. "Kid, that's not blood. That's the food color. You got it all over you, you little smurf."

Alerted by Jamie's yelp and Danny's laughter, Mary ran back into the kitchen. "Jamie! What did you do? Danny, why weren't you watching him?"

"I was trying to make the bottle sides flat," Jamie mumbled.

"And I was busy frosting cupcakes," Danny replied.

Mary grabbed a handful of paper towels and wiped up as much of the loose food color as she could. "Jamie, it's bathtime for you. Right now. And don't touch anything on your way upstairs."

Mary led Jamie upstairs to the bathroom he shared with Erin. Unfortunately, it looked like Erin was still using it. She knocked on the door. "Sweetie, can Jamie and I come in?"

"Mo-om!" Erin whined through the door. "I'm almost done with my hair rollers. Can he wait a few minutes?"

"Sorry, honey. It's kind of urgent. You can take your rollers to my bathroom."

"Fine," Erin sighed. She opened the door. After one look at her baby brother, she burst out laughing. "What happened to him? He looks like a baby smurf!"

"Do not," Jamie whined. He was getting tired of people laughing at him. "And what's a smurf?"

"He was playing with the food color bottle," Mary explained.

Erin laughed again. "I've got to go get Joe. He's got to see this." In her eagerness to show her younger brother what their baby brother had done to himself, she forgot to pick up the Confirmation locket she'd removed before showering and placed on the edge of the sink. "Joe, come here," she called as she headed down the hall toward their bedrooms.

Mary picked Jamie up and put him in the tub, then turned on the water. "Okay, sweetie, let's see what we can do about this blue dye."

Half an hour later, it appeared the answer was 'not much.' Despite multiple rounds of soaping and rinsing, the skin of Jamie's face, hands and arms, and strands of his fair hair remained tinged in blue. "Well, kiddo, that's the best we're going to do. Maybe we can find some matching clothes for you to wear tomorrow." She pulled the drain on the tub, then picked Jamie up and put him down on the bath mat beside the tub.

Jamie smiled. "Okay." Now that he'd some time to think about it, the blue marks on his hands looked kinda neat, like Joey had told him when he popped into the bathroom earlier.

Mary shook her head and started to reach for one of the towels stacked on the rack beside the tub, then hesitated. If she used those light yellow towels on Jamie, they'd likely end up streaked in blue. There were some dark green towels in linen closet. Those would hide any residual blue dye. "Jamie, stay there on the bath mat. I'll be right back with a towel."

"Okay," Jamie agreed. But as soon as his mother left the room, he walked over to the sink to see how much blue dye remained on his face. Joey said the blue dye on his face had been even cooler than the blue on his hands. He grabbed the edge of the bathroom counter and pulled himself up to look in the mirror. "Wow," he said to himself. With all the blue streaks running across his face, he was going to look really cool in church tomorrow!

As he stepped back from the counter, he finally noticed the item his left hand had been resting on. Erin's Confirmation locket. He picked it up and looked at it. It was a different color metal from those coins of Danny's. They had been silver and… there was a special word for the orangey metal… Copper. That was it. But this was more of a yellow color. He wondered if it tasted different also. He carefully put the locket and chain in his mouth. He wasn't going to swallow it; after he swallowed Danny's coins, Mommy and Danny had told him not to swallow stuff that wasn't food, and Mommy had made him drink some yucky tasting stuff that made him have to go the bathroom a lot.

Jamie rolled Erin's locket around on his tongue, trying to decide if it tasted different. It did, he finally decided. And the chain was interesting; kind of like tiny metal spaghetti. Then the chain slipped further back and tickled the back of his throat. He coughed. Maybe it was time to put the locket back on the counter. Just then, he noticed the door opening again. Mommy was back! And she was going to catch him with Erin's locket in his mouth! He didn't have time to put it back where he'd found it. Only one alternative came to mind. He swallowed hard, and the locket slipped right down his throat.

"Okay, kiddo. Let's get you dried off and into bed." Mary wrapped the towel around her son. "Sweetie, have you seen Erin's locket? She thinks she left it in here."

Jamie swallowed hard. "I don't see it, Mommy," he said. Hopefully, if Mommy didn't know he'd swallowed Erin's locket, she wouldn't make him drink that yucky medicine.

Mary looked around the bathroom herself, checking both the counter and the floor around it. "It's probably in her room somewhere."

"M'hm," Jamie mumbled. He was already starting to feel bad about lying to his mother. Or was it because of the locket? Maybe he was allergic to it, like his friend Logan was allergic to walnuts.

Mary toweled off her son, blew his hair dry and got him tucked into bed. She noticed he'd seemed quieter than usual since she'd returned to the bathroom with the towels. "Sweetie, are you worried about people teasing you about the blue dye?" she asked him after they finished bedtime prayers.

"No, Mommy," Jamie replied. "Joey said it looks cool."

"Well, if Joe says it looks cool, so it does." Mary leaned over and kissed her son goodnight.

The next morning, both Erin and Jamie were out of sorts. Erin was still fretting about her missing locket, and no one could figure out what was wrong with Jamie. At least, until after Sunday School, when Mary came to pick him up from his class and found her youngest son crying in the arms of the assistant teacher. "Jamie, honey, what's wrong? Did someone make fun of you?"

Jamie shook his head and moved into his mother's arms. "No."

"What happened?" she asked both her son and the assistant teacher.

"Today's lesson was about honesty and telling the truth. Jamie just seemed to get more and more upset throughout the lesson," she responded.

"Jamie, did you tell a lie about something?" Mary asked.

Jamie nodded miserably. "Yes, Mommy," he mumbled.

"Tell me the truth now. I won't be mad at you," Mary encouraged.

Jamie sniffled. "I know where Erin's locket is."

"Where, honey?" Mary asked, while she wondered why Jamie would have taken and hidden his sister's locket. She watched as he looked down and put one hand on his stomach. _Oh, no. Not again._

"In my tummy," Jamie confirmed.

Mary hugged her son. Actually, twelve hours later, it probably wasn't in his tummy; it was probably working its way through his little digestive system. "Oh, Jamie. You have to stop swallowing metal objects. They're not good for you."

"I just wanted to see what it tasted like," Jamie argued.

"Jamie, if you have to taste things, put your tongue on them, not them on your tongue. It's safer," Mary advised her son.

"Okay," Jamie agreed. "But I don't like the way yellow metal tastes, so I won't try it again."

Mary rocked Jamie. "I'll be sure to tell your sister that her locket tasted bad."

"Yeah!" Jamie perked up. "Maybe she won't be mad at me if she knows that. Can I tell her?"

"You should let me do that, Jamie. I think she's going to be angry anyway. But you will have to apologize to her taking her necklace."

"Why? She'll get it back, like Danny got his coins back."

"I don't think she's going to feel that way. Girls can be pickier than boys about that kind of thing," Mary tried to explain without going in to too many details. "So don't taste-test any more of Erin's things, okay, kiddo?"

"Okay," Jamie agreed. That still left most of a house full of small metal objects just waiting to be explored.

 _A few days later:_

Mary carefully retrieved Erin's locket from the pot of boiling water on the stove using a disposable wooden chopstick left over from the last time the family had ordered Chinese take-out for dinner. "Looks like it's all cleaned up this time, Jamie. Let me cool it down and you can go give it back to your sister," she told he youngest son. She ran the locket under the cold water faucet.

"Will she stop being mad at me then?" Jamie asked. Erin had hardly spoken one word to him in the two days since he'd confessed to swallowing her locket.

Mary looked over the locket. The outside didn't look any worse for its trip through Jamie's digestive system, but the pictures inside had been destroyed. "It will help. Here, go give this back to Erin."

Clutching the locket in his hand, Jamie ran from the room. "Erin! Erin, where are you?"

"In the sunroom, Jamie," Erin called. "We're out here playing video games."

"Erin, I have something for you!" Jamie called as he ran into the room. "Here!" He held out his hand with the locket in it to his sister. "It's all shiny again. You can't even tell it was in my poopy an hour ago!"

At Jamie's announcement, Danny and Joe looked up from the video game they were playing. Joe choked on a laugh. Danny didn't even try to hide his laughter.

Erin picked up the locket by the clasp, touching it as little as possible. "That's… nice."

"Aren't you going to put it on, Erin?" Jamie asked.

"Yeah, Erin, aren't you going to put it on?" Danny repeated, trying to hold back more guffaws.

"No, Jamie. I'll save it for special occasions," Erin explained to her brother. "Thank you for giving it back to me. I'll put it in my pocket for safekeeping right now." She wrapped the locket in a tissue and tucked in into her jeans pocket. There was no way she was ever going to wear that thing again, not knowing exactly where it had been. So. Gross.

==BB==BB==

Erin laughed at the memory. "It was so gross."

Jamie tried to brace himself against the chair to protect his ribs. "Come on. I'm begging you." As his family muttered halfhearted apologies for making him laugh, Jamie recalled another incident involving his swallowing jewelry. His mother's pearl earrings…


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER 3**

 _Mary's Pearl Earrings_

Four-year old Jamie sat petulantly on the edge of his parent's bed. "Mommy, why can't I go to the party with the rest of you? Danny and Erin and Joey are going," he pouted.

Mary checked her lipstick and put the tube back on her dresser. "Jamie, because we won't get home until too long after your bedtime. And you'd be bored. You'll have lots more fun here with Carol." The Regan family, minus Jamie, was getting ready to leave for the annual NYPD Christmas banquet. Jamie would be staying at home with a babysitter for the first time without his siblings. "You like Carol, remember? You and Joe had fun playing with her last month."

"Yeah," Jamie sighed.

Mary poked through her jewelry box and pulled out a pair of pearl stud earrings. She held them up to her ears. No, that wasn't the right look for tonight's festive event. "After you two get dinner, you can play Candyland, or watch a movie. We'll be back home before you have time to miss us at all." She put down the pearl earrings and looked through the jewelry box for that pair of rhinestone drop earrings Frank had given her for their last anniversary. That was the right look for this occasion. Busy setting the earring in place, she didn't notice that Jamie had hopped off the bed and walked over to the dresser.

Jamie stared at the earrings his mother had set down. The small white globes attached to the gold sticks looked just like little balls of sugar, and kind of like the chocolate candies he been allowed to eat a few of at Halloween, although the candies had been brighter colors. He wondered what these tasted like. He picked them up and carefully put them on his tongue. Bleh. Other than the tangy metal flavor, they didn't really taste like anything. But then, the chocolate candies hadn't had a lot of chocolate flavor at first, until the outside layer melted away. Maybe these 'candies' needed a little time…

"Okay, Jamie, let's go downstairs and meet your sitter," Mary spoke up.

Uh-oh. If Mommy looked closely, she was going to catch him tasting her earrings, after she'd told him not to put small metal objects in his mouth. Jamie pushed them to the back of his mouth and swallowed, like he'd done with Erin's locket. But this time, something went wrong. They got stuck, and started poking his throat. It hurt! He coughed once, but the earrings slid down further down and poked even harder. He coughed again, and they slid even further down, poking his throat all the way. "Mommy!" he croaked.

"What's wrong, Jamie?" Mary looked down at her son. Jamie was coughing and grabbing at his throat; tears streaming down his red face. She looked to the dresser and noticed her earrings were missing. She knew exactly where they were. "Jamie, sweetie, did you swallow my earrings?"

Jamie nodded miserably. "Poking … inside," he whined between coughs. "Mommy!" The coughs were rapidly turning to choking sobs as Jamie began to panic.

"Shh, baby. Don't worry." Mary scooped her son up and ran to find her husband. "Frank!"

"Waiting for you, Honey," Frank called up the stairs. "What's wrong?" he asked as he noticed Mary running down the stairs, carrying Jamie in her arms, and the worried look on her face.

"Call the doctor! Jamie swallowed my pearl earrings."

Frank took one look at Jamie's red, tear-streaked face and grabbed his son out of his wife's arms. "Never mind calling. Let's get to the hospital now."

Fortunately, Henry and Betty had driven out to Bay Ridge to pick up the family for the party. "Francis, I'll call your pediatrician for you. And don't worry about the other kids. Betty and I will take care of them," Henry told his son.

Within minutes, Frank had Jamie strapped in his car seat and Mary settled in the back seat behind him, and was driving to the hospital as quickly as conditions allowed. Immediately upon arrival at the hospital, they were whisked back to a treatment room. That was when Jamie realized exactly where they were – a doctor's office! Mommy had said they were going to the 'mergency room, but he knew what a doctor's office looked like! He started trying to wiggle out of his mother's grip.

"Mommy, they're not poking anymore," he lied to his mother. Something still felt stuck in his throat, but it wasn't as bad as it had been earlier. "We can go home now."

Mary held her baby tighter. "You still need to see the doctor, Jamie. The earrings could hurt you."

Jamie turned to his father. "Daddy, I feel all better," he fibbed again. "I don't need to see the doctor." Doctor always wanted to poke his arms with sharp objects that made them hurt for days. "Please, Daddy!"

Frank reached from his position sitting in the hard chair next to the examination bed to grip his son's foot. "Jamie, when you swallow things you shouldn't, sometimes you have to visit the doctor."

"I'll never swallow anything ever again for my whole life if we can go home," Jamie begged. "I promise!"

"Sweetie, you have to swallow food, or you'll get hungry," Mary explained. "But food and drinks are the only things you should swallow, okay? And you have to see the doctor tonight."

Jamie sniffled. "Wanna go home."

"Knock-knock!" The on-call pediatrician knocked on the doorframe and let herself into the room. "So, I understand our young patient is wearing earrings on the wrong side of him?"

"My pearl studs. I'd just put them down on my dresser briefly," Mary explained as the doctor did a quick examination of Jamie.

"And you thought they looked like candy, Jamie?" she asked while palpating his neck.

"Yes'm," Jamie mumbled miserably.

"Makes sense. Okay, now tip you head back and open wide for me." The doctor aimed a small light into Jamie's open mouth. "How long ago did he swallow the earrings?"

Frank glanced at his watch. "A half hour. Maybe a little more."

"Good." The doctor stepped back slightly. "Mr. Reagan, Mrs. Reagan, I'd like to get one quick x-ray. I can see the edge of one of the earrings, lodged right about here," the doctor gestured to a spot just below her neck, "and the other one is likely in his stomach. If it is, we'll remove them both with a scope. Normally, we'd let them pass naturally…"

Frank shared a rueful glance with his wife. Jamie had given then more than sufficient experience in that area.

"… but since the stems are sharp – they caused some minor abrasions to his throat – I don't want to risk any further injury. We'll do the procedure under light anesthesia, and then we'll keep him overnight for observation."

Jamie only understood one part of the doctor's speech. They were going to keep him! Take him away from Mommy! "Mommy! Don't let them keep me. I wanna stay with you!" Jamie grabbed his mother tighter.

"Shhh. Shhh, Jamie. It's okay. We'll be right here with you." Mary reassured her son before she looked up at the doctor. "They'll give you some medicine to make you sleepy, and when you wake up, we'll be sitting by your side, waiting to take you home."

"That's right, Jamie. We'll get you fixed up, and send you back home with your family. If all goes right, we'll even send your Mommy's earrings home with you." The doctor smiled at Mary.

"Oh. Okay," Jamie agreed.

"Isn't that… nice." Mary shook her head. She was never going to wear those things again, not after they'd been swimming around in her baby's stomach. She was with Erin on this one. Danny may have been able to clean up his dimes to his satisfaction. But pierced earrings. No way. Nope.

==BB==BB==

"Mom never did wear those pearl earrings again," Jamie laughed "Ow!" he yelped as his ribs again protested any movement.

Frank looked down at his son. He hoped Jamie would forgive him, but there was one final story to tell. "When he swallowed the key to the liquor cabinet…" Frank couldn't keep back a chuckle. "That was pretty serious."

* * *

 _Observant readers may have noticed we're going out of order with how the conversation went in the episode, but it worked better for this story. :D_


	4. Chapter 4

**CHAPTER 4**

 _Frank's Liquor Cabinet Key_

Several years later, it appeared that Jamie's hospital visit resulting from the earring-swallowing incident had cured him of his taste for small metal objects. Mary had channeled Jamie's need to taste everything into a more constructive line, introducing him to small samples of various fruits, vegetables and herbs and spices, both common and exotic. As a result, by age five years and eleven and a half months, Jamie had tasted and eaten more vegetables that his brothers had in their combined twenty-eight years. And then, several days before Thanksgiving, there was one last metal swallowing incident.

"Danny, you owe me a bottle of whiskey, and an expensive one. You helped drink that one at Halloween," Al Cleary insisted. "My dad is gonna kill me if you don't replace that one before the whole family arrives tomorrow for Thanksgiving."

Danny crossed his arms across his chest. "No way, Al. You and Ronnie drank most of that. This is your problem." He grabbed the key to his father's liquor cabinet off the top of the cabinet and closed it in his fist, in case Al tried to get the key and steal a bottle from Frank Reagan's liquor supply.

"Give me that key!" Al yelled. "You owe me."

"Do not," Danny insisted. He glanced over at the doorway, where his brothers were standing, likely attracted by Al's raised voice. "Hey, Joe, heads up." He tossed the key to his younger brother.

"You think that's going to stop me? I can take the key from him easy. He's a little runt."

"I'm not either, you big dope," Joe snapped at Al. "I'm gonna get bigger than you."

"Well, you're not now, so give me that key before I break your arm and take it from you." Al advanced toward the younger boy.

"I would if I could," Joe challenged back. He pushed his baby brother slightly behind him, handing off the key to Jamie in the process. "Actually, I wouldn't, and I can't, because I don't have it."

"Al, come on, cool it," Danny encouraged as he stepped closer to Al, taking up a defensive position between his younger brothers and Al. "This is getting stupid."

Jamie glanced at the older boys. Everybody really wanted this key, and Joe had entrusted it to him. He needed to find a place to hide it. He quickly popped it into his mouth. He wouldn't swallow it; bad things happened when he swallowed small metal objects. But he bet no one would think to look there for the key.

"It's only stupid that you won't pay me what you owe!" Al snapped at Danny. "If you don't have the key, and little Joey doesn't, then…" Al turned toward Jamie. "Hey, baby Jamie, hand it over," he demanded.

Jamie crossed his arms across his chest and silently shook his head.

"Little brat!" Al rushed toward Jamie.

Jamie gasped and jumped backward with a yelp. Al was _really_ angry! And lots bigger than he was, and running right at him! Not that he needed to worry, as both Danny and Joe tackled Al to the ground before he got within arm's length of their little brother. Jamie sighed in relief, then came to an unsettling realization. The key wasn't where he'd put it. He must've swallowed it! _Uh-oh..._

"Asshole!" Danny yelled. "What're you doing, trying to attack a little kid?" He hauled Al to his feet and shoved him toward the door. "Get out of my house!"

"Whatever!" Al called back. He stalked out the front door, slamming it closed behind him.

Danny turned his attention to his baby brother. "Okay, Jamie, you can give me back the key now."

Jamie shook his head. "I can't."

"Why not, kid? I need to put it back in place before Dad sees it's missing."

Joe looked from Danny to Jamie. "Jamie, why can't you give it to Danny?"

"Because." Jamie looked from one brother to the other, then down at his feet. "Because I accidentally swallowed it."

Joe burst out laughing. "Danny, Dad is going to be so mad at you. Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and now there's no way to get to the wine and stuff."

Danny looked at his baby brother. "How long does it take before it comes out his other end? If he's quick enough about it, maybe we won't have to tell Dad. Doesn't Mom have some medicine that speeds things up?" Danny tried to recall what his mother had done when Jamie swallowed his dimes a few years earlier.

Jamie glanced from Joe to Danny. He remembered that medicine. It tasted horrible, and it made his insides feel yucky. He didn't want Danny making him drink that stuff. "Mommy!" He ran out of the room in search of his mother. "Mommy, I did something bad! But by accident and it was Danny's fault! Please don't make me go the doctor or drink that yucky stuff!" he yelled on the way.

==BB==BB==

"Hey, ow. That one really was an accident," Jamie tried to defend himself as everyone at the table laughed again. "Ow. C'mon. I was old enough to know better than to swallow stuff on purpose by then."

"That's what you say now, kid," Danny teased his brother. "Just glad you remembered that skill when you needed it." He dropped a hand back on to his brother's shoulder and squeezed it gently as he thought about what could have happened if Jamie hadn't resurrected his childhood gift. It would be a very different Sunday dinner… He squeezed his brother's shoulder again, reminding himself that Jamie was okay, while he tried to think of how to lighten his mood. "Hey, kid, I heard Grandpop made your favorite dessert. Floppy disk baklava," he teased.

"Ow. Danny, ow," Jamie gasped between laughs from himself and most of the rest of the family.

Jack and Sean weren't laughing. "Dad, what's a floppy disk?" Jack finally asked.

* * *

 _Thanks again for the reads and reviews! They are much appreciated!_

 _Look for a slight longer, much more dramatic story coming next week...  
_


End file.
